73% of Californians oppose AI data centers in their communities, according to a Public Policy Institute of California survey. Monterey Park banned them outright. Coachella paused them after public protests. But cash-strapped fairgrounds with volunteer boards are signing nonbinding agreements before anyone shows up to object — because nobody told the public the meetings were happening.
Here's the connection nobody else made: the same week this story broke, California High Speed Rail Authority CEO Ian Choudri — whose agency just got caught expensing a nightclub, an escape room, and Uber Blacks to taxpayers — is pitching AI companies on leasing the public land along the rail corridor for data centers. Two arms of California government. Same play. Same moment.
In 2015, True Detective Season 2 built its entire plot around insiders with access to California's high-speed rail route secretly buying land around it. That was fiction. This is a business plan.
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California Underground covers the California stories the rest of the media ignores — following the audits, the contracts, the budgets, and the officials responsible for outcomes that aren't matching the promises. No team. Just receipts.
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